Blogging The Boys
What would say is the current identity of the Dallas Cowboys?
With the Dallas Cowboys in the middle of first-year HC Brian Schottenheimer’s first OTA sessions, the talk around The Star as football things ramp up remains focused on the new culture around the team. It’s been an underlying theme in the acclimation of rookies and other new players alike, and the game being fun again for a team coming off a drama-filled offseason and very tumultuous ending of Mike McCarthy’s tenure in 2024. Schottenheimer will move into his first minicamp with the Cowboys in the second week of June. Minicamp has become the absolute mini-est look at anything resembling real football, but rest assured, that time is still rapidly approaching as the team will be on the field against the defending champion Eagles for a real game in less than 100 days now.
When that time comes, keeping in mind all of these things about culture and a new beginning will still be important, but so too will be the black and white nature of wins and losses. Above all of the things that are still being pieced together about how the Cowboys new staff actually plans on winning games, the most obvious and indisputable one is expecting better availability from starting QB Dak Prescott.
With Schottenheimer also stepping into the role of offensive play-caller, the Cowboys are counting on the all-important HC/QB combo to go a long way in yielding better results with Schotty and Prescott compared to McCarthy and mostly Cooper Rush at the end of last year. In order to do so, Schottenheimer has talked a lot about installing plays that may help “turn back the clock” for Prescott. This is a team very much looking to rebuild in the image of Prescott’s early years, where high percentage throws, moving the pocket, and of course, running the ball, were all staples.
There is one other thing this team should be striving for in accomplishing this, although it is much less tangible. When it comes to the start of the Prescott era in Dallas, the 2016 season is not only his rookie season, but still the highwater mark for wins with 13 and the only time a Prescott led team has been the top seed in the NFC playoffs. Prescott had a clear running mate in leading the team to those heights as a fourth-round rookie that started as a third-string quarterback in the offseason. Running back Ezekiel Elliott was also a rookie, and went on to lead the league in rushing yards.
This duo took the league by storm and did things that were hard to explain for long stretches of time, mainly rattling off 11 straight wins following a week one loss to the Giants by one point. As players that simply didn’t know any better yet about what anything past year one in professional football looked like, Prescott and Elliott helped that entire Cowboys team adopt an attitude of not truly knowing how good...
